


Tough Love

by Kizzywiggle



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Ben Whishaw's Beard, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Makeovers, More tags later, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Q gets a bit of his Badass Back, Torture, Turns out James is a badass in many ways, Violation, YES I FANCY MALLORY, all medical and psychological stuff is made up, hopefully a happy ending, mindfucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:38:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7510450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizzywiggle/pseuds/Kizzywiggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond has no weaknesses...apart from one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my old ones, edited (there was a LOT of crying) and hopefully, finally, finished. I wrote myself into a corner last time.
> 
> Fingers crossed!
> 
> Always for Bee x

James’s mobile rang, Right Said Fred’s _I’m Too Sexy_ piercing the darkness and bringing him fully awake almost instantly. It was Q’s ringtone, but for him to be calling at – James checked his watch – 2am, something must be wrong.

“Q?” he barked into the phone. “What’s up?”

There was static and the sound of heavy, wet breathing. A sob came down the line followed by a pained groan. “James…help me…James…” the sobbing continued painfully. James was already getting dressed as he talked. “Where are you, Q? Q, talk to me!”

Another groan. “James…I’m outside, help…” James ran through the flat and down the communal stairs, opening the street door with a yank. Q fell through it in a bloody heap, leaving a wet red smear down the door and on the smart black and white tiles. Red foam bubbled from his lips with each shuddering exhalation and he looked up at James through two swollen and bruised eyes. His feet were bare and also bloody; as James looked onto the deserted street, he could see faint wet footprints marking the pavements under the streetlights. He reached down and slid his arms beneath Q, even though it was the absolute worst thing to do with a man so injured, lifting him up and carrying him inside. The quiet, sobbing groans continued but got weaker. It was like Q didn’t even have the energy to scream.

Once they were back in the flat, James laid Q out on their bed. He snagged scissors, towels and disinfectant from the bathroom and made his way back to his bloodied husband. It hurt to see him like this; he seemed even younger than usual, and terribly frail as he struggled to breathe. “Hold on, I’m going to cut you out of these clothes,” James informed him as he set to with the scissors. “Bloody hell, Q, what happened? Who did this?” With each snip of the blades, more and more damage was revealed. Q had been worked over, quite literally from head to foot. Every inch of him was bruised or bloodied or cut. As James cut through Q’s trousers, he heard a crackle. Reaching into the pockets, he found a plastic bag containing a micro SD card. Crinkling his brow, he put it on the bedside table and continued to strip Q down. Once he was naked, James used towels and disinfectant to gently clean the worst of his wounds. On the inside of Q’s thigh James found a strange scratch. When he cleaned it, fresh blood bubbled up, highlighting letters:

_S.P.E.C.T.R.E_

“Shit!” James swore. He swabbed at the scratch and quickly snapped a picture with his smartphone. A few swipes with his thumb attached it to an email which he quickly sent. Then he dialled. An upper-crust male voice answered.

“Mallory,”

“It’s Bond. Q’s been attacked. I found a micro-SD on him, plus someone’s decorated his thigh. I emailed you the image.”

There was a pause. James knew when M opened the email because there was a muttered, “Oh, damn!” Q stirred on the bed, his groans turning into a high-pitched whimper. Mallory was talking. “SPECTRE, James? After all this time?”

“I find it hard to believe myself,” James said, continuing to dab at Q’s injuries. He swore as he noticed dried blood around Q’s genitals and back passage. “But it’s there. M - I’m going to need a team here for clean up, and Q’s going to need more medical care than I can provide. I think he's been sexually asaulted as well as thoroughly beaten. Can you sort it out for me?”

Mallory grunted into the phone. “Yes, I’ve scrambled them. They’ll be there within ten minutes, Bond. I’m sending Moneypenny and one of Q’s flunkies, too. Moneypenny will take notes and record things, and you’ll need to turn the micro SD over to the flunky for analysis. I’ll expect you at HQ with Moneypenny first thing to report.” He hung up.

James continued cleaning Q up, talking a constant stream of reassuring rubbish under his breath the whole time, just trying to soothe Q with his voice and his touch. It felt like an eternity before the medics pushed into the bedroom, gently putting James to one side and quickly getting Q ‘comfortably’ stabilised, before sliding him onto a stretcher and taking him out. James looked after him and drew a shuddering breath. A soft touch on his arm made him whirl round, eyes wide. Moneypenny – Eve – stood there, face solemn, iPad in hand, one of the junior tech nerds at her side. “I’ve already taken photos, James,” Eve said. “This is Danny, he’s been working as Q’s assistant. He’s here for the micro SD.” Danny smiled shakily and lifted his left hand in a sort of wave. James grabbed the plastic bag from the bedside table and shoved it at him.

“I don’t know if it’s relevant, but it was in his pocket. His wallet, phone, keys weren’t. You’ll probably need to lock his phone down, unless it’s too late and they’ve already stripped it. Um, maybe activate the tracker?” His normally unflappable façade was cracking. Blood and violence was nothing new to James but seeing Q hurt? It hurt him in a way he couldn’t believe. He was crumbling fast.

Danny took the bag and disappeared into the hallway. James went to sit on the bed, but, noticing the bloody mess Q had left behind, he choked and stalked to the kitchen instead. He grabbed a glass and a bottle of scotch from the cupboard and pulled a generous measure, which he knocked back in a single shuddering gulp. He splashed another serving out and raised it to his lips but stopped short of swallowing, his head dropping as tears welled up. Eve rubbed her hand across his tight shoulders and patted his back once in a gesture of silent understanding.

“What am I going to do, Eve?” James asked.

“Same as the rest of us mere mortals,” she replied with her gamine grin. “Cope.”

James shot her a look. “Yeah, thanks,” he said.

Eve took his hand and led James to the living room, where she saw him safely onto the sofa, then she dropped to the floor beside him and rested her head on his knee. James threaded his hand through her mad, corkscrew hair, winnowing and stroking, taking comfort from her proximity and her softness. She was so soothing, was Eve. The amount of female friends he’d had over the years was almost nil; women were for fucking, for using, for discarding. M – the _old M_ – had been a friend of sorts, as well as an antagonist, a strange mother-substitute, and James’s rock in the turbulent seas of espionage, but Eve, bless her, fell into a category all her own. She met James quip for quip, never quite responding how he expected. According to Q, James had been ‘friendzoned’…it was a strangely immature concept, but explained as well as something more sophisticated, the way Eve and James worked together.

After about ten minutes of this peaceful contact, Eve stirred and spoke.

“Do you know what happened?”

James shook himself out of the half-reverie he’d fallen into. “No…” he said slowly. He phoned me just after two…” He stood in a burst of energy. “He phoned me, Eve! But where’s his phone?” Eve looked up at him. James ran back into the bedroom, dropping to his knees and searching desperately under the bed. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled Q’s number; at the end of the line it rang and rang and rang, but there was no answering chirp of Bon Jovi’s Lay _Your Hands On Me_. Just as James was about to ring off, the phone was answered.

“Mr. Bond, how good of you to call,” the voice was male, low, deep. The faintest German accent coloured the consonants, roughened the vowels. “I presume you got my…gift?”

“Who the hell are you?” James shouted. “What are you doing?”

There was a laugh. Not a particularly evil or threatening laugh; more a genuine sound of delight. “Oh, how unoriginal, Mr Bond! Is that the best you can come up with, a man famed for his repartee? Tut, tut…”

James flicked the phone on to loudspeaker mode so that Eve could hear. She began recording the conversation on her iPad. “And greetings to the beautiful Miss Moneypenny, too!” said the voice. “Hi,” said Eve. She quirked a sarcastic brow at James and mouthed “Prick,” while giving the uncaring phone the finger. “How rude,” said the voice sarcastically. “And before you say anything, yes, I can see you. There’s such an amazing array of tech gadgets one can get hold of these days, and one doesn’t even need to go to the bother of hiring underlings! God bless ebay!”

Eve tapped an icon on her screen, and turned in a slow circle. She stopped facing the mirror-fronted wardrobes. Moving forward, she slid open the door and ran her finger down the edge of the shelves. A pinch, a yank, and she held up a filament between her fingers. “It’s a fibre-optic camera,” she stated. A look of distaste crossed her face. “There’s a reason I was no good at fieldwork, James.” She grinned. “I just find all of this invasion of privacy so…distasteful. Aren’t there better ways to find things out?”

“No, not really,” whispered James. “I can only sleep with so many people, you know.”

“And sleep with them you have,” the voice said. “Including that sorry wreck we delivered to your doorstep, not an hour past.” A beat, then; “What did you think of my…artwork?”

“You did that to Q?” Eve asked. “You, yourself?”

“Oh, yes,” replied the voice. “Well, I...supervised, shall we say?”

“Why?” James asked. “Why Q? He’s only my quartermaster, he doesn’t actually know anything of value.”

“But he does,” the voice said. “He knows how to tame the savage beast. Namely, you. For so long I have plotted and planned and searched for weaknesses, to no avail. And then, well! The mighty Bond, the man without a heart, without a soul, the empty shell in service to Her Majesty fell in love. And with…with that! A scrawny, pimply, man-child? A nerd! Imagine my shock, Mr Bond. For years we have thrown femme fatale after femme fatale in your path, and you fuck them, you dump them, you watch as the bodies pile up… And it turns out that all we needed was the right bait.”

“Screw you,” James muttered.

“Oh, but I’m afraid I don’t…what is the expression? I don’t swing that way,” the voice replied. “And I never imagined you did, either, but it’s so useful! Anyway, I don’t have all night to waste on this chit-chat, Mr Bond. You’ve found my calling card upon your, ahem, Master. There’s information on the micro SD that you may or may not find useful. But there’s other little goodies…secreted about the body of your husband. Let me know when you find them. You have my number, Mr Bond. Goodnight.”

The line went dead. James stared dumbly at the black screen before lifting haunted eyes to Eve. “Oh, God, Eve, it’s because of me,” he whispered. She moved closer and wrapped her arms around him. He dropped his head to her shoulder and mutely accepted the comfort she offered. When she took his hand and led him to the spare room, stripped him and tucked him under the covers before sliding in and spooning up against him, he said not a word. As her warmth surrounded him, he closed his eyes and let the darkness claim him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out a little of what happened to Q

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still quite unpleasant, I'm afraid.

Tough Love ch. 2

Slumped in one of the curiously uncomfortable chairs in M’s office, James scrubbed a hand over his face. Despite a gallon of coffee and one of those fizzy orange multivitamins meant to ‘pep you up’ which Eve had poured down his throat, he still felt like a man who’d had the worst night of his life then and been woken up inhumanly early the morning after...which he was.

The heavy main office door swung open and clicked shut. Mallory –M – moved almost silently across the expensive carpet and slid into the chair across the expanse of desk from James.

“007,” he greeted James with a frown, “You look like death.” It was a bald statement, which James decided required no response. He merely twitched a brow. M returned fire with an eyebrow raise of his own, then turned slightly and tapped at the sleek computer on the desk. He read silently for a minute, eyes scanning across the screen so fast they blurred, then he tapped twice and looked up at James.

“Young Q is in a bad way, Bond. He’d lost almost half of his blood volume by the time we got him to our medical centre last night, and we actually did lose him for a couple of minutes,” M paused while James absorbed this information, observing his inner fight for control with dispassionate curiosity, then quietly pushed a box of tissues across the desk. James waved them away, choosing to pinch the bridge of his nose hard between his forefinger and thumb while he got himself back under control. James drew a deep breath and nodded at M once he was braced again.

M continued, “Obviously, once Moneypenny sent the recording of your phone conversation with Q’s mysterious attacker, we made it a priority to not only clean him him up and land him, but to check everywhere for further evidence. What we found was…well, baffling and disturbing in equal measure.” M pressed the intercom. A faint buzz was heard in the outer office. A moment later Eve sashayed through the door, iPad and plastic evidence bags in hand. James wondered bleakly why she looked fresh as the proverbial daisy, while he himself looked like dog sick. She patted his shoulder as she slid elegantly into a chair catty-corner to him and nodded at M.

“Morning, sir,” she said briskly.

“Can you bring 007 here up to date on the physical evidence we retrieved from Q, Moneypenny?” M asked.

Eve placed the evidence bags on the desk. “The first contains the micro SD card you found in Q’s pockets. It contains a confusingly random selection of data: images of you and Q together, screengrabs of emails and texts between you two, some truly bizarre internet memes, and an assortment of songs ranging from The Monster Mash through Love is in the Air to Mozart’s Requiem. We have put Q branch on looking for hidden data, as well as a cryptologist and our top profiler. It's early days, but they’re all drawing a blank as to a common thread.

“The second item found on Q had been implanted just under the top layer of skin in his left armpit,” Eve handed the bag to M, who peered down his nose at it, before passing it to Bond. “It appears to be an ordinary spent bullet. Again, we ran all the usual tests on it, as well as some unusual ones, but the only forensic data we found was from Q. The bullet itself is perfectly run-of-the-mill. The only thing of note is that it appears to have been fired from your handgun, James.” And then, a fleeting look of discomfort crossed Eve’s pretty face. “The final item had been…shoved, quite brutally, into Q’s rectum,” she said. She passed the bag to James first, this time. He stared at it unseeingly, his mind not willing or able to process it. Eve took it from him and passed it to M.

“It’s another bullet, unspent this time,” she informed him. “It’s got ‘FAGGOT’ and ‘PANSY’ engraved on it. It had been inserted into Q with such force that he, uh, required anaesthesia to remove it. The surgeon said he hasn’t torn or anything, but he’s obviously not in good shape.”

M tapped his upper lip with a blunt index finger. Bond noticed, inconsequentially, that the light glinted off of a very expensive manicure. It struck him as rather contradictory – a man’s man and former soldier like Mallory having such groomed hands. Deeper down, Bond knew his brain was latching onto these silly, random thoughts to avoid thinking about what had happened to Q, but with the ease of long practice, he hushed his inner voice and concentrated on other things. Bond looked up at Mallory’s face and was surprised at the amount of anger he saw there. When M spoke his voice was tight, the upper-class diction more pronounced than usual.

“Obviously, we have given this assault a high priority, and it’s been classified top secret, Bond. Until we know if this genuinely is the work of S.P.E.C.T.R.E, or some kind of homophobic assault, or even just your common-or-garden psychopath, we are keeping Q under guard. As soon as he is stabilised, we will be moving him to a top-secret safe house to recuperate, and hopefully he can assist us in building a picture of his movements and what happened last night.” M’s gaze softened ever so slightly and he looked at Bond with a faint hint of pity. “We are telling Q branch that he’s had a family emergency and has taken leave to deal with it. As people are used to you coming and going at short notice, we don’t need to provide you with any cover.”

Bond looked at the floor, then back up. He could feel his anger, normally tightly leashed and focused, fighting to break free. “I want to be in on this investigation, M,” It wasn’t a request, it was a tense statement of intent. Bond stood to emphasise his seriousness and glared at M, who returned his look with equanimity.

“No.”

“No,” M repeated, then held up his hand, palm out, to forestall the argument he saw in Bond’s face. “You will go to the safe house with Q, Bond. Firstly, you are his husband, and it’s…natural…for you to comfort him as he recuperates. Secondly, you will be on the case, but as his bodyguard rather than as the hand we will use to punish his violator. Thirdly, most importantly, Q loves you. He trusts you. He’s more likely to open up to you than anyone else. You should be able to get the information we need from him without traumatising him any further.

“Have no doubt,” M continued, “We will be pursuing this as a priority, and to the full extent of our capabilities. Moneypenny will liaise between HQ and yourself; you will be kept fully appraised at all times. However,” he continued, “You are not, repeat not to go rogue on this one, Bond. You are too close, and are considered judgement impaired. Any action from you other than aiding Q in his recuperation, or sharing information with Moneypenny, will be viewed as illegal, and you will find yourself subject to prosecution to the full extent of the law. Am I understood?” A sharp glance reminded Bond that M was a man who had been used to unquestioning obedience long before his promotion to the role of ‘M’. Bond nodded reluctantly, and lifted his hands from the desk so he could sit back down and fester.

M looked at Eve, who tapped her iPad and showed James the image of Q’s naked back. “We also found that his shoulders, buttocks, chest and feet had been abraded so that the top few layers of skin were removed,” she informed the men. “Basically, the parts of his body where he’d be most likely to lean or rest. This means that lying or sitting or walking are going to be intensely painful - if not agonising - while his skin regrows. He will be stuck on his stomach for quite a while, the surgeon said. Again, the profiler is unsure what the purpose of this is. In his words, we are ‘looking at what might be one, very complex jigsaw, or several simple jigsaws which have been mixed together.’” She reached over and touched Bond’s arm. When he looked at her – why was her face so strangely swimmy? he wondered fuzzily – she said, quietly, “But any information helps us build a picture of the man responsible, James. We will find him.”

The phone on M’s desk rang shrilly. He answered it, then covered the mouthpiece, to address Eve. “Moneypenny, I need you to give Bond details of the safe house, and then take him to the hospital to see Q. By this evening, I want Bond set up ready for Q’s release. Dismissed.” He turned away from them.

Closing the door to M’s office behind them, Eve asked James if he wanted a coffee. He shook his head. He just wanted to go, away, anywhere. He couldn’t quite process the pain where he was. Eve quietly spoke to a young man typing away in the outer office, grabbed her coat, and almost dragged James down to the car park.

They’d been driving for about ten minutes before James spoke again. His voice was low and painfully rusty with controlled tears, anger and panic.

“Is Q conscious yet?”

Eve looked away from the road briefly, into his eyes, then refocused on the London streets. She seemed to think about what she said before speaking.

“No, he’s being kept quite heavily sedated for now. The assault was severe, and surgery plus blood loss and trauma means that the doctors think sedation is best for him. At least for the next couple of days.” She bit her lip. “I’m going through some of the…less-official channels than even M knows about, James, trying to get some answers. The recording of the phone call provided no clues: it was like that man was calling from inside a vault, there was absolutely no background noise. His accent seems to be put-on. And all of the physical data we recovered is so bloody random…” she trailed off, and heaved a frustrated sigh. Eve hated not knowing things, and one of the reason she'd moved from field- to office-based staff was her (in the eyes of MI6) regrettable tendency to let empathy interfere with her efficiency.

James put his hand on Eve’s knee. There was nothing sexual in the gesture, simply a man giving and seeking reassurance.

“I appreciate all you’re doing, Eve,” he said quietly. “You’re a good friend, even if Q still insists on calling you ‘That Woman’!” He laughed hesitantly, then louder. Soon, he was howling with laughter, gasping for breath as Eve joined in. Eventually the laughter trailed off and James took a deep, shuddering breath, the first it felt like he'd taken since Q's phone call the night before. He breathed again, and again, calming himself, slowing his heartbeat, suppressing the panic he felt fluttering inside his head at the thought of Q so badly hurt, and seemingly senselessly. He patted Eve's knee, squeezed it, and withdrew his hand. "Thanks, Eve," he said. "You're a better friend than I deserve."

She smiled, mischievously. "I know," she replied with false modesty, flirting at him from under her lashes. "It's why you're planning on spoiling me outrageously on my birthday. Don't forget!" She flicked the car sound system on, and Elton John's _Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word_ filled the small space. James chuckled ironically to himself, and dozed off.

It felt like not too long after when Eve roused James as they pulled up in front of the hospital. Housed within a purpose-converted Georgian mansion and set on beautifully landscaped, quintessentially English grounds, this was where MI6 brought agents and staff too severely injured to risk in a public hospital. The nursing staff were all top of their specialties and recompensed heavily for the unpredictable and secretive nature of their work. Passing through security with relative ease, James and Eve made their way to the room where Q lay.

He was on his stomach, wires and tubes seemingly all over him. Machines whirred and bleeped quietly. James nodded at Perkins, the agent on guard, who sat unobtrusively in a chair near the door. A young, pretty nurse was making notes on a chart. Eve greeted her and they began talking in low tones, while James moved to the head of the bed.

Q’s hair was still matted from the night before, and faint smears of blood and dirt clung to him. His face was grey-pale, the skin under his eyes bruised, his lips swollen and cracked. The flesh along his back and shoulders was bright red and covered in the kind of weeping, clear ooze that comes from a scrape injury. James reached out his hand uncertainly, but couldn’t think of anywhere he could touch Q that might not hurt him worse. Tears welled up in his eyes, running unnoticed down his cheeks, and for the first time in so long he couldn’t calculate it, James began, fervently, to pray.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> REALLY HORRIBLE STUFF HEREIN. This is a flashback chapter.
> 
> Q is in the hands of an unknown enemy and being tortured. I've tried not to be too explicit. There's also heavily implied rape.

The darkness was absolute.

He awoke to this realisation and panicked, his blood thundering in his ears, his breath harsh and loud, filling his senses until (between that and the darkness) he was completely disorientated. He swallowed painfully. Aware distantly of pain - not specific pain, just pain, dull, burning, all-over pain - he tried to move but couldn’t. Fresh panic sent bitter adrenaline coursing through his body, giving him strength, and he pulled his arms and legs, straining the muscles, but to no avail: he was trapped. In the dark. Not knowing how or why he was there, or even where there was.

Right.

First things first.

He concentrated on his breathing; in, out, in, out, counting the breaths, focussing on no more than the sensation of the air being sucked into his nostrils, down into his lungs, then back out again on a warm exhale. As he calmed he tried to hold the breaths at the bottom of the inhale, and felt the oxygen reaching his brain, bringing the clarity he needed to think. Slowly the panic receded, and he pushed the rest of it away with willpower alone, focussing instead on his predicament, searching the pitch darkness for clues with his remaining senses and his intellect.

First, touch: he knew from the lack of movement he was restrained, and tightly, but now he was clearer in his mind he realised he was naked. Without the disorientating effects of the panic attack he also ascertained he was standing; back against a firm surface which was smooth and warm, and with his arms at his sides. He tried to turn his head, but couldn’t. He tried to move his head forward but couldn’t do that, either. So, logically… he wiggled his arms and legs: he had minimal sideways movement, but nothing forward or back. His long fingers strained down to where he felt constriction about his upper thighs, and he felt thick, rough leather. Rubbing his ankles and wrists he believed he could feel restraints there, too. Inhaling deeply he could smell cold, and damp, and maybe…yes! The faintest tang of old, sweat-stained leather. He was also aware of a point just digging into his pectoral muscle, so from this he was reasonably certain he was restrained upright by wide leather belts. OK, that was something to work with.

Next, he returned to the cold damp smell of the space he was in. He tried to speak, but pain tightened his throat, and he became aware of how dry and sore his mouth was. He licked his lips, and gasped as the sharply cracked skin there abraded his already tender tongue. How long have I been here? he wondered. Focus! he chastised himself, and forced a cough past his protesting throat. The sound didn’t echo, was, in fact, a dull, flat sound. He thought this meant the space was relatively small. Being cold, damp and small didn’t really offer anything concrete in terms of a conclusion, but he decided that the darkness and the flatness of the sound meant that wherever he was, it was probably underground. He held his breath and struggled to make out any noises over his pulse, but thought he felt a muffled sort of vibration travelling through his body. There was also a regular thudding rumble overhead. Definitely underground, he decided, and probably near a road. The faint noises seemed likely to be heavy traffic passing.

He breathed through his mouth, holding the air on his tongue. He'd never had a particularly sensitive palate, and couldn't differentiate between the various vintages of certain wines the way J… His mind instinctively shied away from thoughts of Him while stuck here, it was too much. He refocused on tasting the air, letting the heavy dampness of it fill his mouth with the rank flavour of mold, the earthy tang of wet brick and concrete and there, just at the back, a lingering taste of very heavy perfume? He wasn't sure what it was, but it was there; spicy, musky, overwhelming. Somehow… threatening?

Despite the fact he was a creature of the brain, happily living in the playground between his ears the majority of the time, his body was by now screaming so loudly with pain that he was struggling to remain 'present'. The restraints chafed horribly against his skin, the leather swollen and rough, cutting into his flesh. His legs and feet were numb from being forced to stand for who knew how long, and now he was fully conscious the constant, aching, all-consuming desire for a drink was like another voice screaming in his brain. He shivered weakly, and would've cried but for his dehydration and the pain in his throat.

There was a sudden heavy buzz, and the peculiar 'thunk' of fluorescent tube lights warming up. He winced and gasped hoarsely as bright white light burned ghosts into his retinas, screwing his eyes up tight just a second too late. Footsteps sounded, thirteen of them, clicking down steps, then three more to where he was. The perfume he'd scented earlier wrapped around him like a smothering blanket, forcing itself into his nose, his mouth, and his very skin, it felt like. He tried opening his eyes, but the light still dazzled him, so that all he could make out was an indistinct slender form in front of him. He closed his eyes in despair and impotent rage at this situation; he truly loathed being out of control at best of times. Being who-knew-where, for who-knew-what reason was bringing him closer to a state of animalistic terror than he cared to contemplate. A soft touch on his chest had him attempting to open his eyes again. He blinked against the glare from the fluorescent tube, and slowly brought his eyes into poor focus – now he could 'see', he realised his glasses were missing – trying desperately to understand who it was before him. The woman moved forward and suddenly, horribly, he could see the warm dark skin, mad corkscrew curls and tilted lips of…”Moneypenny?” he croaked.

She smiled, crookedly, mockingly.

“No, honey, I'm not dear, sweet Eve. I'm your worst nightmare!” Her smile widened to a wide white gleam, and she laughed. Even as his body responded with another flood of fear-fuelled adrenalin, the dry voice of his reason noted the ridiculous drama of the whole situation. The woman-who-was-not-Moneypenny placed her hand on his chest again, fingers spread wide over his pectoral muscle, feeling his heart pounding behind his ribs. She leaned in and delicately sniffed his skin, then flicked her tongue out to taste him. He made a panicky, smothered sound of fear and she looked up from beneath thick lashes with mischievous malice. “Oh, so we don't like that, do we?” she asked with clear sarcasm, and did it again.

“Stop,” he asked, then as she rubbed her thumb over his nipple: “Please. Stop.” She didn't, instead scraping at the skin of his chest with her teeth. He wriggled as far as he could within his bonds but that was pointless as well as exhausting. The woman slid her hand down his front. Over the restraints and his cold, sore flesh, through the dark curls at his groin, and cupped her hand over his penis. He was soft – fear, the cold, and strangely familiar, over-familiar women being a long way from his turn-ons – and she pursed her mobile mouth in a sarcastically dismayed pout.

“Oh, dear me, this won't do,” she breathed, squeezing his flaccid girth, manipulating him even as he struggled and moaned and begged with his eyes for her to stop. “But then again, I'm hardly your type, am I?” She released him and moved away. There must have been an intercom on the wall where he couldn’t see because he heard a click and a buzz before she said, “Send Giacomo to me now,” and tapped back to where he stood. Again, that familiar smile, and the sense that something was seriously wrong. There was a sound of a door opening and closing, and heavier, duller feet came down the thirteen steps and crossed to where he and the woman were.

He smelled a cologne so achingly familiar he gasped. Looking up he saw a face as familiar and beloved to him that, even as dry as his eyes were, tears sprang to them, further blurring his sight. He heaved in a dry, painful sob. ”James?” he questioned. ‘James’ cupped his restrained cheek and leaned in to kiss him, but his mouth was too hard, his manner too assertive. This man wasn’t, couldn’t be, James – which meant, like the woman, he was some kind of nightmarish doppelgänger. The sheer unreality of the situation had him doubting his sanity, searching with his logic to find a reason, any reason for where he found himself. He could find none. Realising this helped calm him somewhat and again he forced himself to calm, corralling his intellect to gather and sort any crumbs of information that might be dropped. Drawing slow steady breaths once more, he waited. Gaining no response, ‘Giacomo’ stepped back once more and assumed an ‘at ease’ stance.

There was a buzz, and the woman pulled a smartphone from her pocket and stroked her fingers over the screen. She smiled to herself, tapped for a moment, then looked up at him. “Sorry,” she said, “Twitter. It’s vital to keep one’s finger on the pulse, wouldn’t you say? And one finds the best kind of lunatics there!” She laughed gaily, the sound flattened and drained of humour by the small space. “Anyhow, my lovely, I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here. Well, I’m not going to tell you. I will, however, be giving you and your bosses plenty of clues to work with…if they can find them all. Giacomo?” She nodded at not-James and he moved back to stand in front of the restraining device. Unable to see her, still her voice continued. “Giacomo, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, bears a startling resemblance to your lover. As I was unable to get a rise out of you in any sense of the word, it’s Giacomo’s turn.” She clicked over to where the two men stood in a frozen tableau and ran a taloned finger under his chin. “Do play along, won’t you? Giacomo can be…nasty, when disappointed. Anyway, must dash! Bye!” After air-kissing the space between the men, she tapped up the stairs and the door opened and closed.

Giacomo moved away, to the side where he couldn’t be easily seen. A click, and the lights went out. Another click, and dim lighting which ran the perimeter of the floor glowed to life, casting eerie tall shadows up the walls. When he returned, he’d stripped off his jacket and stood in just a fitted silky t-shirt and casual slacks, smirking. In his hand he held a scalpel. “What would you like me to call you?” he asked in a voice exactly like James’s. It hurt to hear.

“Sir,” Q snapped with as much spirit as he could muster under the circumstances.

Giacomo laughed. “Still trying to Dom it up? Whilst abducted, restrained, deprived of food and water, and completely at my mercy? Oh, you fool!” He slid the blade of the scalpel along his captive’s rib, leaving a slender, stinging cut in its wake. He leaned in close and whispered, “You will call me ‘Sir’, before we are through. Believe me.”

What followed would have been horrendous for anyone: but for a man used to control in every aspect of his life, one used to command, to respect, it was doubly horrible. The man-who-was-not-James used pain and pleasure to wring unwilling responses from his body, rewarding his reluctant, sobbing orgasms with food or water, punishing defiance with his blade or a sheet of heavy sandpaper, which he used to chafe away skin in tender locations. After several hours of forced sexual acts, Giacomo unbuckled him and let his limp, bleeding body fall wetly and heavily to the floor. The restraint device was moved to a horizontal position and he was re-buckled onto it face down, legs spread. By the time he was given some kind of anaesthetising drug, he welcomed the oblivion, his body brutalised and violated, covered in blood and bruises.

He came to outside the flat he shared with James. His blood seemed to be everywhere, sticking his clothes to his skin with agonising clamminess. Giacomo leant over him and thrust his mobile phone into his hands. “Speak,” he ordered.

“James…help me…James…I’m outside…” The phone was torn out of his hands and Giacomo moved away unhurriedly, slipping around a corner just as James ripped open the door, and Q fell onto the black-and-white tile of the entryway. As the safe, tender hands of his lover lifted him and held him close, he let the pain take him away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q is home and allegedly recuperating.

Q huddled beneath the bedcovers, scrunched into a tiny ball of human misery, despite the pain it caused his battered, slow-healing body. In this self-made cave he was warm and dark and surrounded by the scent of his unwashed, unkempt body. The tang of fear-sweat filled his lungs and oozed out of his pores in an unstoppable cycle of misery. He breathed shallowly: not because of the smell, nor the pain, but because the dizziness it caused took him to a slightly-more-bearable place in his head, a bit like being high.

In the time - weeks? It could even be as much as a month, although Q had lost track of the days a while back – since his abduction and torture, the subsequent surgeries and the horrible recovery period in the hospital, James had been so attentive, so solicitous towards Q, as if he were afraid that to jostle Q's arm or to speak loudly might shatter him. He put up with Q's frequent PTSD-triggered tantrums, his nightmares, his refusal to come back to the world, all with the same glib, jocular stoicism James used to cope with life in the field. But his consideration had a brittle edge to it, a sharp, painful tang which for some reason hurt Q more than perhaps confrontation or provocation would do.

The problem was, Q _N_ control. He'd been recruited for MI6 almost before finishing high school, fast-tracked through university, and brought into Q branch as an intern. Within three years, his laser-keen brain, phenomenal recall, hard work and complete enthusiasm for working in the greyer areas of electrical espionage saw him heading up Q branch, and being assigned to hopefully control 007.

At work, Q knew who he was and what his purpose was every second of the day. He was the best, always. His Dominant tendencies had surfaced about the same time he'd started seriously training for MI6. For Q it wasn't the Fifty Shades of Grey 'I have issues with contact' thing (Q had laughed most of the way through the books, and had to be mildly squiffy to watch the film, even with James keeping a running filthy commentary in his ear) as discovering that what he needed, what he thrived on, what he was, was _control_. No surprises, no questions, just beautiful, predictable order. The thrill of teaching his subs to anticipate his needs; the privilege of being in control of their needs, and their bodies too; being trusted with the power to deny or bestow orgasm was a heady delight that never grew old. Discovering that 007, of all people, was sexually submissive had been a delightful surprise. That he’d turned out to be Q’s soulmate, of all things, a complete gift. 

The violation Q'd suffered had been so much more than physical: the removal of his will, the deliberate, malicious, fractional beating-down of his carefully-honed control hurt in a deeper, more painful place than his physical injuries. Q felt like he wasn't himself, anymore. And he didn't know how to fix it. 

Q turned over, the new, tender skin on his back, shoulders and buttocks pulling painfully as he did so. He winced. Unable to stop himself, he fingered the scar in his left armpit where the surgeon had removed one of James' old bullets from his body, then the words cut into his inner thigh. Both wounds were still tender and fairly swollen, but the pain grounded Q, reminding him where he was, who he was. He breathed deeply of his stench under the covers, wrapping himself in it, wallowing. There was a scratch at the door; Q tensed, even though logically it could only be James.

“Q? Are you awake?”

Soft footsteps crossed the room. James's presence was a physical weight, a psychic weight, pushing Q down, into the mattress, into the darkness, suffocating him…he began to gasp as panic filled his lungs instead of air-

The duvet was wrenched away, light pouring over Q's sweat-drenched, shivering form. He screwed his face up as the glare stung at his eyes, still heaving for a breath. He couldn't cope, couldn't breathe, couldn't escape! He shook and sobbed and writhed, hands over his face, trapped in his head, in his bed, trapped, trapped…

Rapid steps this time.

The sound of the curtains being drawn. Blessed dimness, the sensation of coolness on his overstimulated skin.

More steps, stopping further away this time. A soft rustling. Q forced himself to calm, slowing his pulse until the roaring in his ears dulled to a whisper. He reminded himself to breathe right into his diaphragm, slowly and deeply. The voice of his therapist whispered in his head, helping him count his breaths, grounding him. He just breathed and counted and breathed and counted…

When Q came back to himself and reluctantly opened his eyes, James was sat cross-legged on the floor by the bed. His hands were clasped between his thighs, fingers knotting together, and his head was down. Q couldn't see James's face clearly, but couldn't be bothered to put his glasses on; clarity was not something he desired at that moment. He painfully brought his arm up to cover his face so he didn't even have to try.

“What do you want?” Q's throat constricted, voice cracking as he spoke. He coughed, and tried again. “What is it?”

James’s voice was soft, respectful – not in a submissive way, but like someone speaking to a frightened child, or a rabid dog; cautious, soothing…infuriating. “It’s time for your medication, Q. And the doctor said that we really must get you in the shower today, or you risk infection. If you don’t feel up to a shower, I could give you a bed bath…?” He trailed off, the weight of what he wanted to say heavy between them. He inhaled loudly, then let the breath out in a long whoosh. “Q, this…I know how you’re feeling; trust me, I do –“

Q exploded furiously, pushing himself up to glare at James, almost screaming, voice raw. “ You understand?!? YOU?!?” He sucked in a deep breath, then the words poured out of him like a stream of bile, or the pus from a lanced septic wound. “You, when you have been tortured, molested, toyed with, have been done so whilst acting for Her Majesty’s government! You’ve not been grabbed off the street, drugged, cut, buggered, spat on, filmed-“ he broke off on a ragged sob, the tears coming from deep within. “I don’t think you can understand, James! The terror, the pain, the degradation? I feel soiled! I’m scared to even leave this bed because I know that right here, I am safe, I am protected. Anywhere else is the unknown, full of people and situations I can’t control, can’t predict…” By this point Q was incoherent, words, tears and snot all streaming uncontrollably as he purged some of the poison within his mind. He shuddered as waves of hot and cold fear ran through him, acid rising up from his stomach. “I’m gonna be sick!” he croaked, and James scrambled to shove the wastepaper basket in front of him in time for him to be bitterly, agonisingly sick, heaving and retching until nothing came up but viscous gobbets of stomach lining.

Drained, ashamed, he lay back down. Exhaustion came over him, and he slept.

When Q next awoke it was to a tidied and cleaned bedroom. The bedside light was on, and James sat in the easy chair by the window, tapping at his iPad. From the annoying sounds the device made, he was playing Angry Birds yet again. Q was surprised at the tiny curl affection he felt at the sight of James doing something so completely mundane. He levered himself up on his elbows, blinking owlishly. “Where are my glasses?” he asked quietly. James came over and fished them off of the bedside table. Q felt a bit better when he could see, and pushed himself to sit up. He noticed a tray, and James lifted it onto his lap. The ever-present medication was there in a small plastic cup, alongside a plate with a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. Q wondered idly how James had ever survived on his own, let alone in the field – he could barely put together a lunch tray, let alone cook. _You’d think a man as obsessively tidy would learn to cook_ he grumbled in his mind. Q's back pulled and twinged as he moved, shooting arrows of pain along his neural pathways. Despite the surgeries, the rehab, the never-ending-bloody-treatments, the only way his back would feel properly better was with time. Trying to ignore the pain, the lingering sense of hopelessness, he stretched forward and grabbed the pill cup and the glass of milk. He tossed the pills down with a swallow of milk – wondering as he did just how long the tray had been ready, as the milk was horribly lukewarm – then grabbed the sandwich and began to chew. The look of pride and satisfaction on James's face almost made him giggle: what a good boy I am! Q thought, So compliant! He managed two thirds of the dry bread and faintly greasy cheese before exhaustion washed over him again. He fell unwllingly into sleep, taken down by the damned pills, and as he sank he felt a kiss whisper over his brow and James remove his glasses. He was too suppressed by the medication to protest.

James moved back into the dimness of the living room, flicking on an uplighter and flopping down onto the sofa, where he scrubbed his hands hard over his face and let out a massive groan of confused misery. It had been nearly three months since Q was dumped on the doorstep; six weeks since he'd come home, and no matter what James did or said, there was always just this feeling of, of…distance, and no matter what James did, he couldn't find a way to close in on Q. He supposed Q was right – James's own torture experiences had always been 'on the job', the preparation, counselling and debriefing for each mission exhaustive. Not to mention he'd been trained to withstand physical pain and psychological interference. Oh, Q, I wish I could reach you, he thought sadly.

When his laptop chimed softly, breaking into his miserable reverie, James shook his head and reached to open the chat window. Eve's concerned face filled the screen, her lips moving noiselessly. James held up a forestalling hand and flicked the sound on.

“Hey, Eve,” he said, smiling tiredly.

“Big boy,” she returned with a wink.

“How many times, Eve? I'll take a lot of nicknames, especially from you, but not bloody Big Boy!” James made a face of mock outrage, and Eve laughed delightedly.

“How about ‘Mighty Wanger'?” she suggested impishly, “Or, ooh, ‘Horse'?” There was a muffled growl from behind her and Eve turned away briefly. “Of _course_ yours is bigger,” she soothed, before turning back with a smile. “Oops, did you hear that?”

James growled and made a rude gesture, to which Eve laughed hysterically. Eventually they both calmed down. “Thanks, Sweetheart,” James said. “I needed that. Anyway. What can I do for you?”

She quirked her head to the side in that so-Eve manner. “M requested I try and get an update on Q's condition,” she stated. “Q's therapist is of the opinion that Q is withholding something fairly major from us, and until we know what it is, we can't deal appropriately. Unfortunately, Q, even currently, is more than intelligent enough to dissemble indefinitely.” She frowned. How does she even manage to be cute while frowning? James wondered. “This could be vital, James. M thinks it's time to stop 'pandering'” (she made sarcastic quote marks at this point) “And forcibly debrief him…”

James exploded. “What the actual fuck, Eve? How can he say that? Q wasn't abducted as an agent, he was abducted because he's my partner! M has no right, none at all to even think of that! He's traumatised enough –“ he broke off as the sound of screaming sobs came from the bedroom, gesturing behind him. “Listen, Eve, listen to that and do not tell me that M thinks forcible debriefing is even slightly an option! Q will talk if and when he's ready, not before. And if Mallory wants to push the issue, you can tell him I will bloody well push back. Hard.”

Q's screams continued, gaining in volume and rising in pitch. Eve sighed, and broke eye contact. “I'm sorry, James. I'll tell M. Hadn't you better go and deal with Q?”

“I can’t,” James replied in a broken whisper. “I can barely touch him without him cowering away from me. And the one time I tried comforting him while he slept, he nearly tore his back open fighting me.” James drew in a shuddering breath, his control a fragile thing built of will alone. “But I can sit in the room, which I will do, and I promise I'll try and find out what he's hiding. Check in tomorrow night?” Eve nodded, and James blew her a kiss before breaking the connection.

Going back into the bedroom, James observed Q. His sheets were sweat-soaked, his hair wet, his hands held out in rigid claws before him. His screams and cries were interspersed with fragments of sentences which James strained to catch.

“No! No, stop…Eve? Why? Nooooooo! No, James, Giacomo… James, please, please! Stop! Stop! It hurts…” he wept freely in his sleep, tears pouring down his face to pool on the pillow. “I thought you loved me,” he sobbed, and James's heart broke. He checked his watch: three hours until he had to wake Q for more meds. Well, until then he would listen and make notes…however much more he'd like to crawl into bed and wrap himself around his weeping lover.

For Queen and country, James, he reminded himself with a bitter smile. Queen and bloody country.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place a good few months after Chapter Four.

Chapter Five  
Q juggled his backpack, insulated mug, several books and a bag of McDonald’s finest greasy stuff (clenched between his teeth) while he fished in his coat pockets to find his front door key. Locating it with a muffled grunt of triumph, he finally opened the front door of his tiny Central London bedsit and just made it into the hall in time to dump the mug and the food on the hall table before everything fell to the floor. He kicked the door shut without looking then left everything in a heap, merely grabbing his mug and the fast food before moving the two steps to the sagging sofa in front of his TV set. There, he listlessly ate the food and drank the tea, then fell asleep watching some crappy soap opera.  


***  
He awoke in the darkest, coldest part of the night, muscles locked, breath shallow, heart pounding.  


Q wasn’t sure what the dream had been – touching, kissing, whispers, pain – but he recognised the symptoms. He’d been in that place again. He sat up and removed his glasses, scrubbing at eyes at once gritty and wet with tears. Come on, Q, he told himself, You can do better than this!  


But he knew it was a lie. He flicked the TV off, pulled the horrible sofa into its slightly-more-horrible bed form, stripped down to his underwear, than lay awake in the dark the rest of the night, eyes staring into the darkness, ears straining, jumping at the smallest sound.  


***  
The following morning, he walked into work. “Hi, Ben!” called Denise from behind reception. He lifted a hand in return but didn’t stop to talk. Several people greeted him in the lift up to the fourth floor where his office was, but he didn’t speak to them, either. He walked rapidly to his corner cubicle and got ready for the day. 

When the clock hit nine and the phones buzzed to annoying life, ‘Ben’ was ready: “Is that… (he checked his printout) Mrs Walker? Good morning, my name’s Ben and I’m calling with details of a new government scheme regarding insulation…” the phone call was abruptly terminated by Mrs Walker. Nothing new there, then! ‘Ben’ returned her number into the database for someone else to call on a different day, then connected the next one, and so on for four hours until his lunch break, which he took alone and silent, before starting over again at one thirty.  


At four thirty-seven, he connected the next call in the queue. “Good afternoon, is that Mr Anderson? My name’s Ben and- “  


“Oh, fuck off why don’t you?” drawled a voice at once familiar and repugnant. “Don’t you have better things to do than bother me, you waste of space?” The call cut off. ‘Ben’ sat in his cubicle with his heart shuddering behind his ribs, bile burning up his throat, every muscle in his body suddenly frozen, even as the voice in his mind, the one he’d ruthlessly locked away for bloody months burst through his mental defences screaming, It’s him, it’s him, it’s him, run away, get away, SAVE ME! He abruptly turned and was violently, endlessly sick into his small wastepaper basket.  


Ten minutes later, he was on the bus on his way back to his miserable, soulless, empty bedsit once more; this time with instructions not to return to work until he was well enough not to just puke in his cubicle.  


He shoved his door open almost angrily, slammed it behind him, flicked down the small button on the old-style lock to secure it and slid to the floor, where he fell to pieces. He crumpled like he hadn’t allowed himself to in months – like he hadn’t afterward. Like he hadn’t when he quit Six. Like he hadn’t when consigning his genius to mundane drudge-work for the foreseeable future. Like he hadn’t when he’d left James without a word to just vanish.  


The dam having been burst, eventually the reservoir of pain and misery ran dry. He pushed back to his feet and went into the tiny bathroom, where he removed the lid of the toilet cistern and extracted a small, plastic-wrapped box. This he dried before going back into the main room where he set the box on the low coffee table in front of his sofa and sat to stare at it. His mind was full of pain and confusion, but he knew that he must think this through from every angle before acting rashly.  


Thinking was painful. It had been so long since he allowed his mind to work on anything other than the most superficial level required for basic survival. All of his quickness, his genius, his quirks, his…Q-ness…had been locked away with that panicked little voice, with all the poison and the darkness, the shame and the anger and the hurt. But even as the little voice had resurfaced at work that afternoon, now it was time for his mind to be allowed free rein, to be allowed to ponder and assimilate what had happened, to work out what the bloody, buggering hell to do next. So he stared at his box and he thought and thought and thought.  


***  
The next time he thought consciously instead of automatically and at five hundred miles an hour, it was once again pitch dark in the flat. He blinked, surprised, and furrowed his brows as he adjusted his brain and slowed the gears back down. Unfortunately, his rational-thinking self had been in complete agreement with his primitive panicked self, and there was only one course of action open to him. He rolled slightly to one side and pulled his (not entirely legal) pen-knife from his back pocket and opened the blade. He sliced through the protective plastic which had kept the contents protected while they’d been stuck in the cistern, then pried the box open. 

The mobile phone which was inside was thankfully dry. He pressed the power button and waited as the screen flickered on. It still had two bars of battery life (unsurprisingly – he’d tinkered with and upgraded it until it was really only a phone still by virtue of it still being able to make and receive calls) and as he set it back down on the coffee table to try and stop the panic from overwhelming him again, the phone began to buzz and flash and continue buzzing and flashing as nearly a year’s worth of texts, voicemails and missed call alerts suddenly had somewhere to be instead of floating around as random strings of code in the ether.  


Grabbing the phone with a sudden, hot flash of bravado, he unlocked the screen and hot-dialled a number. It rang three times before a voice – at once horrendously, terrifyingly similar to, yet completely different from, the voice he’d heard earlier at work ¬– answered.  


“Q? Q, is that actually you?”  


He sighed. A huge, shaky, desperate lungful of courage. Then exhaled before replying.  


“Yes, James, it’s me. We need to talk.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Working towards a happy ending, but bear with me...

The target, sat on a stage politely listening to the rapturous introduction she was being given, was blithely unaware of the watching figure on an overlooking roof. She was equally unaware of the microscopic red targeting dot focused unwavering on the back of her skull, and the indrawn, held breath of the watcher, the man with his finger on the trigger.She stood, smoothed her skirt, and walked tidily to the podium on skyscraper heels.

“Thank you, Clarence, for those kind - and utterly undeserved - accolades,” she purred into the microphone. “It's been an amazing year for our organisation, and I've been proud to be your C.E.O. We are now world leaders in our field, and a shining light for others seeking to emulate our success. But now is not the time to rest on our laurels! No, we move ever forward, ever upward, ever seeking to be -”

There was a moment of absolute silence, when the audience thought the woman had just paused for effect, and then, as she crumpled to the floor, as they became aware of the exit wound on her forehead, as the people on the stage with her belatedly dove for the floor, then, the screams began.

By then the watcher was gone, calmly walking down the fire escape from his rooftop before climbing into an unremarkable car and driving to an equally unremarkable hotel. He pulled up, exited the vehicle with a sports bag, and threw his keys at the parking attendant with a grunt of acknowledgement. He climbed the steps to the hotel wearily and immediately made his way to the hotel bar and ordered a large, expensive bottle of vodka. He uncapped it, poured a shot, drank it, then another, and another. By the time he was halfway down the bottle he was nearly smiling, enough that one of two giggling ladies who'd been eyeing him in the over-bar mirror and daring each other to chat him up was brave enough to approach him, trailing a languid hand down her neck and cleavage before touching a fingertip to his wrist.

“Hi, I'm -”

“Piss off.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I. Said. Piss. Off. It's not a difficult concept, now, is it?” As he spoke, his tone was almost affable, certainly not offensive, and the woman moved closer, perhaps thinking he was teasing, but as she pressed up against his side he whirled around and grabbed her wrist painfully before standing to loom over her, speaking now in a flat, dead voice. “Look, I realise the sun, or the booze, or just being naturally stupid has somehow handicapped your understanding, but I said, piss off. As in, go away, no, I'm not interested, and frankly, I'd rather stick my cock in a dead sheep because I'd find it more appealing. But thanks all the same.” He grabbed his bottle and walked out of the bar leaving the woman pale and shaking, her friend and the bartender rushing to make sure she was OK.

By the time hotel management came to his room have a word, he'd already left, bag and bottle in tow, everything else - including the car - left behind. Three hours later, bottle now drained and dumped, he was on a plane back to Britain where an almighty bollocking certainly awaited him.

*** As he walked out of Heathrow his phone began to buzz insistently. He ignored it with the ease of long practice. As he flagged down a cab and gave it directions it continued to buzz, so he pulled it out as he climbed inside the cab and gave it a disinterested glance; it was only the office, it could wait. He scrolled down through the texts while the cab sped across London, but none grabbed his attention enough to read properly. When the cab pulled up he chucked a twenty on the money tray and alighted to walk up to a grotty house, poorly converted into dark, damp, substandard bedsits. He let himself into the never-ending gloom of number three and threw his bag on the sofa without looking.

“Glad I picked the chair,” said a woman from across the room.

He whirled, body contorting into a semblance of an attack position, waiting for his vodka-soaked eyes to adjust to the movement. He squinted as she flicked on the lamp next to the chair, barely making out long legs and mad curls.

“Christ, Eve, I could have killed you!” he half-shouted, then wobbled where he stood.

“Maybe with alcohol fumes, James, nothing more lethal,” she sassed. “Look at the state of you!” As he slid onto the floor she came and crouched before him, concern filling her dark eyes. “You can't carry on like this,” she said softly. “You're acting like a man with a deathwish.”

“What have I got to live for?” he asked quietly. “Q left me, Eve. He's gone . He left because I couldn't protect him. Not from those bastards who grabbed, raped and tortured him, not from the pain, not from bloody Mallory and his stupid crusade to find S.P.E.C.T.R.E. And without Q, nothing else is worth shit!” James shouted, then the tears came. Not ‘manly’, restrained tears, but horrible, raw, broken sobs, tears flowing and smearing where he wiped them away with the heel of his hand.

Eve just stayed crouched by his side and watched him cry, giving him space to grieve as he needed to. When he'd finished she put a soft hand on his shoulder.

“I'm sorry, James. So sorry. But what you're doing now? It can't continue. M knows about your entirely unauthorised hit on Ms. Kitchener and is about ready to give up on you. And the drinking isn’t helping you make good decisions either. Come on, James!” she shook him slightly, then sighed when he continued to stare at the floor. Standing and picking up her bag, she pulled out an envelope which she dropped in his lap. “You have a formal disciplinary hearing tomorrow at ten. Please try to be sober for it. Call me if you need me.”

And with that she left.

*** James stayed on the floor, letter untouched, and stared into space. The horrible bedsit faded from nicotine browns and yellows into bruised blues and greys as night advanced into the room, and still he sat. He breathed and sat and breathed, wrapped in the pain which had held him prisoner since Q just left. Nearly a year without so much as a call or a text. A year since he'd returned from yet another meeting where he fought Mallory tooth and nail to try and protect Q from further forcible debriefing, only to find Q gone. The note on his bed just said _I can't do this anymore_. He'd taken his phone and some absolute basics like underwear and cash but that was it. Everything else was left behind, like he'd died.

Four months after Q left, James had accepted (mostly) that he wasn't returning, and had sold their flat and all of Q’s belongings apart from his experimental gadgets and computers, which even Six were unaware James still had. He'd moved into this bedsit as a form of unconscious self-flagellation and started drinking to dull the screaming of his inner child, who was left broken hearted and desolate by another abandonment, and then he started taking on freelance jobs in addition to his work as a Double-Oh. He slept with targets callously, trying to fuck his hurt out, and took greater, stupider risks in the field than ever before. Repeated reprimands from M and varying sanctions limiting his capabilities as a Double-Oh didn't curb his appetite for self destruction in the least: he was a dead man walking and one with absolutely no interest in extending or preserving his life. He courted death recklessly, bitterly disappointed with every new dawn he met.

James leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. What a fucking mess! He thought. He’d come so far with Q’s help, but had slid back down the slippery slope faster and farther than ever before without him. He'd hate what you've become. What you've allowed yourself to become. You're pathetic, James!

He stood and moved to the inadequate kitchenette to make tea. Another of Q’s foibles he'd picked up - maybe he should try to find answers in the bottom of a teapot, rather than a vodka bottle? The bloody tea leaves probably have a better idea of what's going on than I do,he thought with black humour.

Just as he poured water over the leaves in the pot, his mobile rang with Right Said Fred's _I'm Too Sexy_. He dropped the kettle, scalding water flooding the counter and dripping onto his legs, but he didn't notice as he fumbled for his phone, stabbing at the screen to answer before it rung off.

“Q? Q, is that actually you?”

There was a pause, eons long, full of terrifying possibilities, then the sound of a deep breath being drawn which whooshed back out softly. “Yes James, it's me. We need to talk.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James meets Q for the first time in a year.
> 
> Moneypenny puts her foot in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter getting the story going again, hopefully.
> 
> Featuring another cameo from Ben Whishaw's beard. That thing gets everywhere...

The café, old, run-down and traditional, was quiet: the early morning rush of builders, bin men, and not-yet late for school children had been and gone, leaving only James and the proprietor-cum-cook, the waitress, and a very elderly lady feeding her ‘Heinz 57’ dog milky tea from a saucer.

James sipped his cup of tea. His _third_ cup of tea. The bacon and egg sandwich he’d ordered two hours ago when he first arrived sat half-eaten on a chipped plate, egg yolk oozing out to form globby puddles with bacon grease and breadcrumbs. James sighed. The waitress came over - again - and swiped limply at the grey, marble-effect formica tabletop. “You done with this sandwich, then?” James nodded and pushed the plate towards her. She picked it up with a grumble and stomped back to the tiny kitchen behind the counter.

The door creaked, the bell above it tinkling. James looked up, then away, as a man with an impressive lumberjack beard and wearing a ratty, fur-hooded parka walked in. He looked up again as the man sat down opposite him and goggled. Between the huge, bristling beard and the matted fur of the hood was a face he'd only seen in his dreams for nearly a year. “Q?” James whispered, and reached out a shaky hand.

Q moved back out of reach. “James,” he said. “Sorry I’m late.” His voice was different, James noticed with a pang; deeper, rougher, the slight home-counties twang replaced with a flat, Midlands accent. Q regarded James for a moment then looked away and nodded at the waitress, who came over, greasy notepad in hand. “Morning,” he said. “The large breakfast please, and extra toast.” With a huff, she slapped a ticket on the table and turned, bellowing the order at the cook. Q smiled slightly.

“I've been here for _hours_ , Q,” James said, hating the whine in his voice.

“Ben.”

“What?”

“I go by Ben, now.”

“Oh...sorry. Ben, then.”

_Ben_ reached into a pocket and withdrew a memory stick. “I think I may have accidentally stumbled on one of the people who...who took me,” he said in a rush. “I, uh, I work in a call centre, cold-calling, and when I heard this man’s voice (he tapped the stick), it brought back everything.” He looked down, somehow shrinking into himself.

“And?” said James. Q - Ben - looked up. There was a pregnant silence, neither man wanting to speak, and then the waitress returned with an enamel mug overflowing with tea, and a knife and fork, all of which she slapped onto the table, tea slopping onto the surface to mingle with old stains. James winced, resisting the urge to mop up and disinfect. Ben picked up the mug and slurped at his tea, seeming to think.

“I don't know if M is still interested in finding these people. I know I behaved abominably, James, and I'm sorry. I ran away, and I know I hurt you, but I couldn't cope with what had happened. When I heard his voice yesterday I was sick in a bin by my desk. It brought everything back. I got sent home, and all the way home, for the next few hours, all I could do was...think, I suppose.” Ben sighed out a long, shuddering breath and winced. “I realised that my attitude after I was taken didn’t help anyone, least of all myself. I should have been working with you, not against you. I should have done anything necessary to find the sick fucks who tortured me, James.” He looked up, the serious eyes behind the hipster glasses still so utterly Q that James couldn’t help smiling, even though it was grossly inappropriate for the conversation. Ben returned the smile shyly. “I hacked work’s database and found my call and from there backtracked to get his details for you.” The memory stick slid across the table towards James. James trapped it with a finger, then reached out and stroked, just once, down Q’s index finger.

Both men leapt apart as if static electricity had leapt between them. Silence grew into the gap they made. The waitress came and plonked Ben’s breakfast down, but the smell of the food made James feel suddenly nauseous, confused and utterly furious.

He stood, grabbing the memory stick. “Thank you for your help, Ben, and for the information. I’ll forward it to the relevant parties. Do you want to be kept informed of our progress? Even as a civilian, I’m sure we could keep you in the loop…” He couldn’t look at Ben, could barely handle even being in the same _building_ as him, he just wanted to _run_... He shoved a tenner down on the table. “Her Majesty insists on paying for your breakfast. Take...take care.” He shoved his arms into his coat, thrust the memory stick in his pocket and left the cafe.

*****

“So - let me get this straight - Q, no, _Ben_ just calls you out of the blue after a _year_ and presents you with the name and address of the guy he thinks tortured and raped him?” Eve’s voice was incredulous. James nodded wearily and sipped hot tea as she paced. “I can’t believe it! The nerve of the guy! After everything he’s put you through, to do that? Seriously? He could have posted it to Six, or to me, or...I don’t know, but that was _bang out of order_!” She was magnificently furious, a tornado in a pencil skirt, and James felt an honest-to-goodness smile stretch his face. “God, let me at him James, I’ll sort the little shit out!”

James put his mug down with a soft thunk. “It’s ok, Eve. I appreciate the concern, but I understand what he did. Anyway, what was on the stick?” He’d brought it straight into work, not wanting to take it home for some reason. Eve had handed it off to the tech boffins before making James a cuppa and beginning her rant, which had continued for a solid (James snuck a look at his watch) thirty-four minutes. She paused and grabbed her iPad. 

“Hang on, I'll see if they got back to me yes...yes, It’s details for a Mr. Liam Anderson. Wow, he might not be Q anymore, but he’s not lost his skills, we’ve everything apart from the guy’s inside leg measurement here! Let me…” she tapped on the screen, then looked at Bond, “Right, that’s copied to M and the S.P.E.C.T.R.E task force, now to see how they want to proceed.” As James opened his mouth, she cut him off with a glare. “ _No_ , James, they won’t let you help. No only are you too close, but you have gone repeatedly off-grid, your drink problem has resurfaced, and you’re frankly a liability.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words. “Better from me than Himself, no?”

“Well said, Miss Moneypenny,” drawled Mallory from the inner doorway. “Remind me to ask you what I’m having for dinner tonight, as you seem to know my mind better than I do.” Eve flushed and looked down. “Bond, with me,” instructed M before spinning on his heel. James shot Eve a look and followed him. M was sat behind his desk, legs out, hands folded over his stomach in a consciously informal, non-threatening pose. “Take a seat, Bond,” he said chummily. James sat.

“I’ve had a look at the report on the memory stick, and counter to what Miss Moneypenny seems to think, I believe you _should_ be involved in the next phase of the S.P.E.C.T.R.E mission - they have targeted you personally, and I believe that to exclude you would be potentially damaging. Your participation is an asset.” M looked at James down his long, patrician nose. “However, Moneypenny was right about the drinking, Double-Oh Seven, so while we put together out plan of attack, you will be going through a rigorous medical and psych evaluation. Again.”

James nodded. “Sir.”

“I’m also sending a team to pick up our errant Quartermaster, Bond.” James made a noise of protest, whether for or Ben or himself, he didn't quite know. “He has intel that we need, Bond, and he’s had a year to deal with things his way. Now he’s decided to surface, it’s my way or not at all. This has gone on too long and is putting the safety of the nation at risk.” M’s bonhomie vanished as he spoke, leaving the rather cold and forbidding visage of a man who made seven difficult decisions before breakfast. “And if he resists, we are using force.” James’s stomach clenched, but he just nodded.Just then there was a tap on the door. “Come!” M barked.

Eve poked her head round the door. “Sir, Doctor Phillips is here for Bond.”

“Ah, excellent.” M stood, buttoning his jacket. “I would strongly suggest it’s in your best interests to pass this eval, Bond. Anything less than a pass would be...shall we say, undesirable?” One brow rose infinitesimally upwards in restrained disgust. Bond nodded. “Well then, Double-Oh Seven, I look forward to reading the doctor’s report. I’ll see you soon, yes?” He shepherded Bond out of his office with a “Miss Moneypenny, in here, _if you please_...?”

James nodded at the white-coated doctor and followed him down the labyrinthine corridors of Six towards Medical. He could feel the hunt lust beginning to fizz in his veins, that tingle of anticipation which prefaced a mission. All that stood between him and punishing, no, _obliterating_ the sadistic bastard who’d ruined his life was one tiny little medical.

Piece. Of. Cake.

Bond grinned.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's definitely time for things to change. Time for Ben to realise that no man is an island.
> 
> Unfortunately, I have to (metaphorically) torture him just a bit longer.

When the knock came at the door, Ben was eating (if not enjoying) a Pot Noodle. He jumped - he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had even a knock from the postman, and it was gone nine thirty at night - and spilled slimy noodles down his front. He swore and put the unappetising 'meal’ down before shoving himself off the sofa to go and press his eye to the peephole in the door. He pulled back with a gasp, then looked again.

Through the fisheye lens, face distorted grotesquely, Ben saw Tanner. With a sigh, Ben rested his forehead on the door. “Go away, Tanner,” 

“You're intelligent enough to have at least _considered_ this as a result of contacting Bond, Q,” Tanner replied. “Would you mind opening the door? It's just me - for now - and I think you'd prefer it if it stayed as just me.” There was a click and the door opened a crack. Ben peered round it and glowered at Tanner, who smiled back with his usual unflappable calm. “May I come in?”

Ben stepped back. “Why not?” Tanner came in, and Ben did the usual reluctant-host duties, offering tea, scrounging up a packet of slightly chewy Hob Nobs, making awkward small talk about the weather, the roads, _I’m a Celebrity_... And then, courtesies observed, he sat down next to Tanner (there being only one piece of furniture in the bedsit), fixed him with a shadow of his old Q stare, and said, “Go on, then.”

Tanner picked up his briefcase. Opening it, he withdrew a dossier and handed it over. “It’s 'eyes only’,” he said. “M has temporarily reinstated your status, and only for this particular mission.” Ben unwound the old-fashioned string which bound the folder shut and opened it. His own face - his _old_ face - looked back at him, all glasses and curls and superiority. He snorted a quiet laugh and closed the file. Looking at Tanner, he was taken aback at the quiet understanding he saw in the man's eyes. “Shall I précis for you?” Tanner asked. Ben nodded.

“Since your capture, we've had several teams working on the information taken from your person, as well as going over the recordings and transcripts of the phone calls we received. They’ve universally drawn a blank.” He shoved a hand through his thinning hair and sighed. “The cryptology department regularly think they've discerned some hidden meaning in the data, only to find it’s a loop-back to something else. The physical data has been almost universally useless; there was no forensic evidence other than yours, and we've had no contact from your kidnappers other than in the first twenty-four hours.” Tanner looked at Ben.

“We need _you_ , Q...Ben.”

Ben swallowed hard past the knot of fear and shame which came surging up into his throat and screwed his eyes up tight. He took several long, slow breaths and shoved all the feelings back down under a rock inside himself where they belonged, then opened his eyes again. “What does M want from me?” he asked quietly. He fiddled with the string on the folder.

“Firstly, a proper debrief.” At Ben’s pained gasp, Tanner leaned forward, sincerity and concern plain on his face. “Six appreciates that this is not a small request, and, as before, M has the very best psychologists, doctors, counsellors...whatever you need, Ben. And before you say it, _no_ , it’s not just for the mission.” He reached out a hand as if to touch Ben’s shoulder, but when Ben shied away and curled in on himself, Tanner backed off. “The only person who knows exactly what happened is _you_ , Ben. And without your information, we are working with only half of the picture. We need your help.”

Ben couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. After a full five minutes, Tanner stood.

“You’ve got twenty-four hours to think about it, Ben. M would rather you came to us of your own free will, but this has gone on too long. He wants this wrapped up, these sick bastards brought to justice, and to know that S.P.E.C.T.R.E is contained. If we don’t hear from you by this time tomorrow, he will send someone to...collect you.” He let himself quietly out of Ben’s horrible bedsit, leaving him sat on the uncomfortable sofa bed among the shattered remains of the illusion of safety he’d built for himself over the last year. 

*****

Once again, _I’m Too Sexy_ pulled James from the depths of sleep. He grabbed his phone, thumbing it to answer the call. “‘Lo? Ben?”

“James, I’m downstairs. May I come up?”

James sat bolt upright. “What?” He didn’t bother questioning _how_ Ben knew where he now lived, yesterday’s chat had proved his hacking skills were still as good as ever; he just wondered _why_ Ben was here, and at almost one a.m.

“I’m...I’m outside. I didn’t know where else to go. Can you let me in?”

“Hang on, I’ll be there in a moment!” James dashed out of bed and over to the intercom, buzzing Ben up. He had the front door open by the time Ben had climbed the three flights of stairs and was waiting, trying to stay cool. “You want to come in?” Ben nodded and brushed past James. Thankfully, Eve had performed an intervention and flat clean while James jumped through medical’s hoops to pass his eval with flying colours, so things were not only clean and tidy, but there weren’t a pile of empty scotch bottles littering every surface. Ben hovered in the living room, shuffling from foot to foot, so awkward, so unsure, so completely _not_ Q, that James hurt just to see him. James sat down, and gestured Ben to the chair opposite. Ben didn’t sit, but instead took a dossier from his backpack. He dropped it on the coffee table and it burst open. Documents and pictures spread across the surface, Ben’s battered, violated body in un-glorious technicolour under the glare of a hundred-watt bulb. 

James shot up and gathered the hateful images into a clenched fist. “Why have you got these?” he asked with quiet fury. 

Ben hunched in on himself. His long, pale, fingers fluttered in a descriptive, fey movement - almost the only sign of the Q James knew from before in this haunted, scruffy man. “M…” he said. “Uh...debrief…?” His face crumpled, and he sank to the floor, gasping for breath. “James!” It was a wail, a primal sound, a lost child calling for its mother in the dark, and James responded instinctively. He knelt down beside his erstwhile husband, and touched a soft hand to the side of his face, seeking permission to enter Ben’s space. Ben looked up at James through eyes full of tears and nodded. 

James moved in close and wrapped his arms around Ben, holding him tight, using his own body as a barrier between the broken and sobbing man in his embrace and the rest of the world. The hands which were so used to dealing death and violence in many imaginative ways stroked across matted, wild hair and soothed through the ratty parka. His voice, which was so often biting and sardonic, instead whispered words of love, of support, crooning meaninglessly until Ben began to shudder as the storm of emotion passed.

The two of them sat there on the floor of James's insalubrious flat for neither of them knew how long. James kept his arms tight round Ben and rocked him gently whilst talking a stream of nonsense, just letting the younger man know he was safe, protected and loved. Eventually they both stilled. Ben let out a gusting sigh and rested his head on James’s tear-damp shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“What for?”

“Everything. I, I…”

“You already apologised. I won’t lie and say it’s ok, because it very much was not OK, Ben, but you’ve been through enough pain for me to let you keep hurting yourself any further. Let’s just start from here and see where we end up. OK?” At Ben’s half-ashamed nod, James stood and pulled Ben up after him. “I haven’t got a spare room, and sleeping together is a definite no-no, so you take my bed and I’ll sleep out here.” He chivvied Ben into the bedroom like a sheepdog and unobtrusively helped him strip down to his t-shirt and underwear. James deactivated the alarm clock and tucked Ben into bed. Ben was already almost asleep, and just hummed when James quietly said, “Goodnight, love,” and flicked the light off. 

Back in the living room, James gathered up the dossier and mechanically reorganised the pages, his agent’s mind noting the images, the data, making connections and filing information, even as the part of him which was husband, lover, friend recoiled from what he saw. By the time he wrapped the string around the fastener to hide it all away again, James was quietly, lethally furious, and it was almost dawn. He grabbed his phone and pressed the screen.

“Eve? It’s me. I’m going to need your help. It’s Ben…” He quickly outlined what he needed. Eve agreed readily, informing James she would clear them for the day with Mallory. James wasn’t shocked when he heard Mallory’s privileged (sleepy) tones in the background saying “Yes, that’s fine, just get back into bed, Eve,” and laughed. “Meet me here in a couple of hours? Thanks.”

He thumbed the ‘end’ button and sat down to plot, smiling tightly. Comforting his broken lover in the aftermath of a horrendous violation wasn’t what he’d felt natural and comfortable with, and the feeling of impotence and loss in the past year had nearly broken him. But _this_...? This he could do, and do well. Ben might still be painfully broken and lost, but if there was one thing James _knew_ , right down to his marrow, it was faking it til he made it. Don’t let them see your weakness. Once Ben woke up it was time for him to learn from the bloody master.

He swiped his phone again, thumbs tapping, instructions winging across cyberspace, waking and disturbing people the length and breadth of London. Yes. Time for things to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter - makeover time! The final guest appearance of Ben Whishaw's Beard, and our heroes begin to kick butt...


End file.
